On The Road Blog
Arrival in Kunming
- By Hoa Duong Piyaka on June 8th, 2011
- Category: Blog, East and Southeast Asia
Kunming, China – After a long day of flight delays, cancellations, and one unexpected overnight in Beijing on my way from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, I arrived in Kunming—late but thrilled to finally be here. I am in Kunming for a GFC Knowledge Exchange workshop, a chance for GFC grantee partners in China to get together, learn from each other, and form connections for future support. I met Vivian, our logistics coordinator for the workshop, and Elisabeth Axelsen, the leader of one of our grantee partners, a bit after checking in at the hotel. We reviewed the workshop plan and met later to take everyone to dinner. By 6:00 PM, not all of the workshop participants had arrived, and we were beginning to get worried that some might have experienced the same types of delays I did. By 7:00 PM, we were getting very worried: Would everyone show up? As if on cue, eight participants met us outside about 15 minutes later.
We walked through the bustling streets of Kunming to the old quarter to have dinner. This is an area of shopping, restaurants, and preserved architecture, with old-world charm and modern convenience. Ten of us ate a large Yunnan-style dinner and got to know each other. Some of those present were Dr. Chen, from Ruili Women and Children Development Center, who is working with teens and sex workers in Ruili, a city on the border with Burma, to educate them about HIV/AIDS; Tashi Tsering, from the Jinpa Project, a Tibetan teacher who trains children about hygiene in Yushu; Rinchen Dawa, of Snowland Service Group, a Tibetan who is still working to rebuild Yushu after the devastating earthquake one year ago; Diane Geng, from Rural China Education Foundation, a Chinese American curriculum developer and teacher trainer; and Elisabeth Axelsen, from Yunnan Institute of Development, a Dutch woman who is working with local authorities in Yunnan to build minority preschools and train teachers to work in them. As I looked around the room and listened to the various conversations taking place around the table, I could tell this would be a very interesting one and a half days!
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